Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs
Winner of the 2017 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize
Winner of the 2019 Bernard Shaw Prize for its translation
At a run-down brothel in Caudal, Spain, the prostitutes are collecting stray dogs. Each is named after a famous male writer: Dante, Chaucer, Bret Easton Ellis. When a john is cruel, the dogs are fed rotten meat. To the east, in Barcelona, an unflappable teenage girl is endeavouring to trace the peculiarities of her life back to one woman: Alba Cambó, writer of violent short stories, who left Caudal as a girl and never went back.
Mordantly funny, dryly sensual, written with a staggering lightness of touch, the debut novel in English by Swedish sensation Lina Wolff is a black and Bolaño-esque take on the limitations of love in a dog-eat-dog world.
Read an ExcerptMore Info
- Read more about Lina Wolff in our authors’ section.
- Read extracts in The Guardian and Words Without Borders.
- Lina Wolff’s short story Maurice Echegaray appears in the February 2016 issue of The White Review.
- Translator Frank Perry won the 2017 Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize and the 2019 Bernard Shaw Prize for this brilliant translation.
- Her two novels The Polyglot Lovers and Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs have both been awarded PEN Translates awards by English PEN in recognition of their importance and the excellence of the translations.
- If you had subscribed to And Other Stories before 14th May 2015 you would have received a first edition copy of the book – in which all subscribers are thanked by name – before its official publication, as well us up to five other And Other Stories titles per year. Find out about subscribing to upcoming titles here.
Reviews
Library Journal
'Oddly compelling . . . a European postmodern novel steeped in alienation and ennui.'
Sarah Perry
The Guardian
‘Wolff’s prose has a quality of “otherness” entirely in keeping with the surreal atmosphere of the novel. This strange, provocative debut sits well alongside the work of Roxane Gay, Katherine Angel, Maggie Nelson, Zoe Pilger and Miranda July . . . a cool, clever and fierce addition to the canon of modern feminist literature.’
Lucy Scholes
The Independent
‘[A] filmic offering . . . channelling the spirit of Pedro Almodóvar. A thoroughly invigorating novel.’
The Skinny
‘Wolff has had enough of the big swinging dicks of masculine literature. [Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs is] clever and challenging and distinctive.’
Kirkus Reviews
‘The author demonstrates a marvellous command of language and creates characters with real depth, lending the book a sensual vibe and an acerbic wit that force its emotional truths to rise above the grunge of its hard-boiled setting. A poetic, unsentimental drama that offers a meditation on love in all its disparate forms.’
